What happened to the last billion dollars in health information technology (IT)?
Mr. Richard Alvarez, Canada Health Infoway, describes Canada’s progress in using IT to transform health care
Presented October 21, 2010 at the MUHC-ISAI’s third annual conference
Health information technology (IT) is not one of those investments that a government can display in the shop window at election time. Its selling point is the health-system transformation it can help bring about: that vision of a patient- centric system with collaborative teams, better access and evidence-based care, where data is captured and used for education, monitoring and continuous improvement. However, these changes generally take more time to implement and consequently the benefits tend to take longer than many other short-term initiatives governments may want to pursue during their three- to five-year tenures. With that being said, the benefits of health IT — in access, quality, productivity, cost savings and economic growth — appeared compelling enough to convince our provincial, territorial and federal governments to come together and create Infoway in 2001 so as to spur and coordinate health IT investment.
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